


and feel the ache

by alpacas



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, but yeah here's a fanfic about everyone on that first night after that happened, characters grieving, spoilers for e26: lost and found, which... i guess is old spoilers by now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 23:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18292079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpacas/pseuds/alpacas
Summary: The snow's falling fast and cold by the time they pull off Glory Run Road.





	and feel the ache

**Author's Note:**

> i've been relistening to a bunch of old episodes, and boy 'converging fury' is such a good episode in all the ways it is also a really tough one.
> 
> title taken from regina spektor's 'field below:'
> 
> _and so the day starts out so slow  
>  again the sun was never called  
> and darkness spreads over the snow  
> like ancient bruises  
> i'm awake and feel the ache_

The snow's falling fast and cold by the time they pull off the road. Set up a sort of camp in the lee of some of the big rocks around, under a natural overhang. Nila leads the other horses, sets them up with food and brushing their coats and murmuring to them with soft words. Caleb stomps around in the inch of snow already on the ground, unspooling wire, muttering, as Nott watches from the shelter, her eyes glowing yellow in the dark.

Beau paces. Tries to climb up the rock, can't seem to get a grip, jumps back down, circles the whole thing a couple of times, rubbing her hands together, shoving them in and out of her cloak, her hood up and down and up again.

Keg watches it all. "Do we start a fire?" she asks at one point, only for the little goblin to give her such a look, so laden with meaning, meaning that Keg has _no idea_ about, that she swallows the question and chews on her cigarette, until the end is wet pulp she has to fish out of her mouth with two fingers, flicking it off into the snow.

When Caleb is done doing his pacing, he moves into the lee, away from the horses. He touches the rocky overhang and then shrugs off the weird pink backpack: pulls a mass of poles and tarp from it, somehow. Assembles a tent, still muttering.

Is this, like, something he does a lot? Keg wants to ask. There's a hell of a lot of muttering and pacing going on lately. Right now. Here.

Nila comes into the lee with wet twigs and branches and starts a campfire. Beau returns from a lap and laughs hoarsely. "Sure. Who the fuck cares anymore?" she asks, sitting down heavy. "Let's just get fucking ambushed." Her face is stung red from the cold.

Caleb assembles the tent and steps inside without a word or look back. Nott immediately scrambles to her feet and moves towards it.

"Wait," Keg says. The little goblin looks over. "You have any more booze?"

Nott changes direction, pulling her flask out of her coat.

"Thanks," says Keg, pulling out her own.

"Don't nurse it, it vanishes," the goblin reminds her.

"I don't nurse shit."

Nott offers the flask to Beau, and a moment later to Nila. "No, thank you," says Nila. Beau doesn't even respond. Nott lifts the flask and takes a long drink from it herself, long enough that Keg is kind of impressed.

"Let's drink," Nott says, offering it to Beau again. "We should drink to Molly."

"I already feel shitty. I don't want — if you drink when you feel like shit, you just feel worse."

"Don't be stupid," Nott says. "That's the only time _to_ drink."

"How… how long did you all… how long were you together?" Keg asks.

"About a month," says Nott.

Keg thinks: _That's it_?

"Don't you fucking say a word," Beau says abruptly.

"Whether you met your friend a day ago or a lifetime ago, it doesn't make a difference," Nila says gently. "The pain is the same. I am sorry you have to go through it now."

Nott looks at her flask, takes another long, long drink, then tucks it back away. "To Molly," she murmurs, and goes to Caleb in the tent.

Keg kind of wants to say something, but she doesn't know what. No words come to her, no subjects to chat about, no topics to address. If she hadn't been such a fuckup… not like the others don't know it, too. Not like apologizing will do shit. She wants to talk just to _talk_ , just to fill this silence, the way the snowfall is muffling the world around them, so there's truly no sound at all but them and their little fire and the occasional noise from the horses. All she sees is darkness and falling snow. It's like the world's shrunk and gone mute and cold, and she wants to fill it, even just talk about the fucking weather, but Beau's giving off serious _don't fuck with me_ vibes and Keg doesn't know how to deal with that.

"I'll take first watch," she says finally.

"I'm going to bed," says Beau. "Nila, you should rest up some, too."

"Yes, that is a good idea. Goodnight," Nila says with a smile towards Keg that somehow makes Keg feel even more like shit.

"'Night. I'll wake someone up for next watch."

"I'll do it," says Beau. She peers into the tent. Caleb had combined both tent's poles and tarps to make one double tent, the frame haphazard and shaky, but large enough for them all if they squeeze. She crawls in and pulls up her goggles, partially just because she can, partially so she doesn't step on Caleb or Nott. Even though it's only been a few minutes, neither of them react to her crawling in.

There's no way they're asleep.

Beau isn't sure it's possible to sleep, if she can sleep even if she tries, if she even wants to.

She keeps going numb and dull, and then it's like she blinks and a whole new wave of guilt swallows her up and drags her back under, like a tidal wave of bad thoughts: _Molly is dead_ , and then she'll see the moment of it, them racing neck-in-neck for Lorenzo, Molly pulling just ahead, slashing and slashing again as Beau had tried to close the last few meters, thinking, clearly: _oh, you motherfucker, you don't get to outrace me_ , and then Lorenzo had —

That could have been you. If she hadn't gotten distracted, if she'd rushed just a few more feet ahead, beaten Molly to Lorenzo… maybe it would be Beau buried in a shallow fucking grave with her sash soaking with snow…

Or: maybe if you'd gotten there first, he'd still be alive. You could have knocked that bastard out. Hit him and knocked him cold like Darion taught you. You know how to stun bastards. No one would have died.

Or.

Beau sits crosslegged in the tent as Nila crawls in carefully after her. "This is good," she whispers. "We'll all keep one another warm."

"It'll be kind of cramped," Beau says.

"I do not mind. I find it comforting to sleep with other people."

The tent is pretty fucking cold.

Beau looks over at the lump that is Caleb and Nott: Caleb lying on his side, facing the edge of the tent, away from them all. She can't even see Nott: the little goblin has completely been hidden by Caleb's coat and larger size. Beau can see his arms slightly extended and imagines some kind of weird embrace, Nott snuggled up against the wizard's chest.

She suddenly feels very — tight. Very empty. Like she's stretched out over nothing at all.

Beau lies on her back between Caleb's spine and Nila's arm, her goggles still over her eyes, and looks up at the tarp and tries to think of nothing. To meditate. To empty herself. To stare up at the burlap and think only of empty fields.

Of clean, white snow.

Of bodies cold below.

Caleb has had enough sleepless nights to know when others are lying awake. He listens to Beau's breathing for a long time, too deep and too steady to be from slumber: she breathes in and in and in for five seconds, releases for the same length, again and again, over and over, almost hypnotic, strangely soothing, in and out, in and out. She is pretending, barely even trying.

He doesn't care.

He doesn't care, he doesn't care. He cannot bear to look at anyone, to face anyone, to speak. He lies facing away from the camp and imagines walking away. Walking off into the snow and the night.

And wraps his arms more tightly around Nott.

The barbarian had been closing in on him, the magic user had been up on the rise, and Caleb's fingers had hummed with magic: who should he aim for? Who should he burn? The mage had been closer to the others. The barbarian had seen him. Or he should run. He should have run. He should still, perhaps…

And then, all in only a few seconds. Nott appearing from the cart alone, having failed to free any prisoners. She'd looked towards him and began to run, and he'd felt a rush of relief and held — he would wait for her, they would flee together —

And then Beau had cried out and he had seen a flash of red and purple and Lorenzo leaning over a figure in the dirt, Keg stumbling, Beau frozen —

Should have run then. Should have run. With Nott or without. He imagines running, crashing through the fields, his lungs burning, his sides aching, imagines slumping behind a rock or tree, listening for pursuers, listening for Nott — waiting for her to catch up, hoping she would.

Or would she have chosen instead to stay with Beau and with Mollymauk?

Surely —

He doesn't know. He doesn't want to know. He doesn't want to talk or to look at anyone. Anyone at all. But when Nott creeps into the tent only a minute after him, she climbs around to lie at his front, pushes herself into his open arms and curls up against him, and he holds her and thinks: _Surely_.

It's such a stupid weakness. It's such a stupid vulnerability. This thing he's allowed himself. This thing she's given to him. This — this strange goblin girl.

If she had been killed, it would be far easier to run.

If she had been killed, he would not have been able to go.

Mollymauk's eyes had been open and clouded in death, his expression relaxed, mouth slightly agape. Uncharacteristic, all of it. Caleb had done what the others had not wanted to: dug the grave, wrapped the body, closed its eyes and brushed back its hair. Allowed the cold of the air to fill and cover him, until he felt nothing, recognized nothing. Even Beau's tears had elicited nothing, no shock, no surprise, no grief. Just nothing.

It is safe to feel nothing. It is power to feel nothing. It is weakness to care. To love.

He pulls Nott more tightly to him, his eyes closed, her tiny body warm, and does not notice that she too is not yet sleeping.

He lies awake in the cold.

Caleb smells like sweat and anise and his fear. Nott's nose is pretty strong, stronger than it used to be, especially for things like _weak prey_ and _vulnerable life_. It makes her feel stronger, makes her feel better, in some twisting awful way. To know that Caleb says: _I am fine_ , and see the fear pulsing through him.

She likes that she isn't the only one scared out of her fucking mind, all the fucking time.

Nott thinks about Molly and wishes she liked him more, so she could be properly sad, cry and cry like when her mother died. Or liked him less, so she could move on and be strong. Not that she's ever been. Instead she just feels twisted and mixed up inside. Sees everyone else, all sharp points and elbows and blades, itching for a fight or an excuse to thrust their pain into clean hot anger. Not her. Not Nott! She drinks and drinks until she just feels soft and confused, wrapping herself in the wool of Caleb's coat and his arms and his bony ribs, willing herself to feel more drunk, more dizzy, more fuzzed up and far away.

People really die easily, don't they? she thinks. She imagines Molly sitting crosslegged and kind of judgmental beside her.

Oh, do they? I hadn't noticed. Tell me more, kid. Any more insights about the world you want to share?

Don't give me that shit, just because you're dead. Don't start acting like it makes you important. It's not exactly a mark of honor. It's the people who live that are the special ones. Those are the guys you should look out for. Being dead isn't anything special. I'd know, wouldn't I? People really die easily. That's all. That's all it is. That's it.

They're just gone.

Just like that.

Buried by snow.

 

 

 

Rest until morning.


End file.
